Trump Tweet On Judge’s Legitimacy Crossed A Line: Cleveland Federal Judge

CLEVELAND, OH — A Cleveland judge sharply rebuked President Trump Wednesday for blistering attacks on federal judges hearing challenges to a controversial executive order that limited travel by nationals of seven predominantly Muslim countries. In a speech to the civil rights committee of Cleveland’s Anti-Defamation League, U.S. District Judge Dan Polster said the president’s comments “undermine the whole system.”

Trump has fired off a series of tweets while the cases are being heard, among them one that referred to the Washington federal judge who put the travel ban on hold nationwide as a “so-called judge.”

Asked specifically at the Cleveland gathering if Trump’s comments harm the judiciary, Polster didn’t mention Trump specifically by name but said the comments set a dangerous precedent.

“This is serious business, because you start calling into question the legitimacy of someone, that undermines the whole system, all right?" Polster said, according to a report on Cleveland.com

Criticism of the judges shouldn’t be off limits, he said, but “when you call into question the legitimacy of a federal district court judge, that's a line that shouldn't be crossed.”

Polster went on to say the president has the right to say whatever he wants publicly, “but it calls into question, and some might even say forfeits, his or her own legitimacy.”

The judge, appointed to the bench by President Bill Clinton in 1998, is the latest of several members of the judiciary who have criticized Trump for his comments. Among them is Neil Gorsuch, Trump’s own nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court vacancy created with the death last year of Justice Antonin Scalia.

Connecticut Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal said Wednesday that in a conversation with Gorsuch, the Supreme Court nominee “said very specifically that they were demoralizing and disheartening,” CNN reported.

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